One of the top stories of the
past week is the continuing monetization efforts of Zillow owned
StreetEasy. Less than a week after industry leading StreetEasy
announced that it wouldbegin chargingbrokers $3 per day per rental
listing advertised on its website, the Real Estate Board of New
York, or REBNY, has announced that it’s launching its own listings
syndication feed. The service will be free to REBNY member firms.
REBNY is hailing the service as a means for agents to more
efficiently list properties and deliver them to
consumers.

REBNY is seeking to launch the
feed on August 1. BOND New York, Brown Harris Stevens, Citi
Habitats, Compass, The Corcoran Group, CORE, Fox Residential Group,
Halstead Property, Leslie J. Garfield & Co., Stribling &
Associates, TOWN Residential, and Warburg Realty have all already
signed on to list with the service.

New York City tourism is
expected to reach a record high in 2017, with close to 62 million
visitors expected to roam the Big Apple this year. That’s 1 million
more than last year, and thesixth consecutive record-high
yearfor tourism in the
city and the first year where visitors broached the 60 million
mark.

The city’s moving on expanding
its tourism office—even Queens has a tourism council now—that’s
pushing tourists to visit destinations likeSt. Georgeon Staten Island, this according to NY
Curbed.

In NYC transit news, the summer
of hell is almost upon us at Penn Station, as repairs will begin
July 10 and last until September. There will be major service
disruptions on Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit, and
Amtrak itself. The good news is that by the end of thesix-week periodof repairs, service should be
improved to the point where derailments and massive delays could be
a thing of the past.Amtrak’s aging infrastructure has been a
problem for years, but things came to a head earlier this year,
when two trains derailed near Penn Station. While no one was
seriously injured in either accident, they brought to light the
major flaws underground; the more than 40-year-old tracks, coupled
with a huge increase in riders over the years, have put a
tremendous strain on the station’s infrastructure, this according
to NY Curbed.

Staying with transportation,
Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency for the
problem-plagued MTA following a series of high-profile failures
within the transit system. "We know the system is decaying, and we
know the system is decaying rapidly," Cuomo said at a press
conference last week, adding that he will sign an executive order
declaring the state of emergency to allow his office to "expedite
many of the normal government processes.”

He also announced plans to
commit an additional $1 billion in the transit authority's capital
plan "so the MTA has the resources they need to get that
done."

Cuomo oversees the MTA through
appointments to its board, but has blamed the current problems on
"decades of under-investment, deferred maintenance and deferred
modernization" of the system compounded by increasing
ridership.

The governor noted that subway
cars are designed to be on the tracks for 40 years, but that more
than 700 cars in the system are past the expiration date — with
some of the oldest subway cars in use for 52 years. The MTA
announced it's launching of theGenius Transit Challenge, a straphanger competition aimed at improving
signals, modernizing subway cars and upgrading communication
systems, this according to DNA Info.

TAMI tenants, which stands
forTechnology, Advertising,
Media, and Information, have been drawn to midtown south in the
past decade,are now
flocking to the Downtown office market, pushing the average asking
rent to a record $62 per square foot in May, this according to the
Real Deal. The submarket has seen a “steady increase” in rents, the
report said. Despite that uptick, average asking rents are still
well below the Manhattan average asking rent of $75 per foot and
some 23.5 percent below Midtown, where asking rents are in the low
$80s per square foot. Downtown has more than 1.2 million square
feet of available space asking $50 per foot or less, and 4.2
million square feet available asking between $51 and $60 per foot,
according to the brokerage’s report.TAMI tenants accounted for nearly 30 percent of
leasing activity in the Downtown submarketthis year.

In Brooklyn news,sales opened last week at
Greepoint’s first condo skyscraper — a 40-story waterfront tower
featuring luxury amenities like a BBQ beach, hammock grove,
speakeasy and basketball court — with one-bedroom apartments going
for nearly $1 million.The
Greenpoint,at 21 India
St., is slated for completion by summer 2018 and will followed soon
after by a series of towering apartment buildings, as the
residential boom along the Brooklyn waterfront continues to spread
north. The project includes 95 condos starting on the 28th floor,
as well as 508 rental apartments on lower floors and in adjoining,
lower-rise buildings — 140 of which will be subsidized for
moderate- and low-income New Yorkers. The project also includes a
29,000 square foot public park, and celebrity
chef Marcus Samuelsson of Harlem's Red Rooster is slated to open a
massive restaurant in the building.

Heading south to Fort Greene,
The public plaza at 300 Ashland Place opened to the public last
week. Located at the corner of Flatbush and Lafayette avenues, the
elevated plaza gives the public access to open space at the center
of the busy cultural district.

The southern section of the
development is yet to open, which will include additional green
space and a 50,000 square foot space that will be dedicated to
cultural organizations. These will include a branch of the Brooklyn
Public Library, BAM Cinemas, the Museum of the Contemporary African
Diasporan Arts and 651 ARTs. Also still under construction are the
retail spaces planned for the base of the tower, including a 365
Whole Foods store and Brooklyn’s second Apple store. The
lower-priced Whole Foods spinoff is slated to open by the end of
the year, this according to Browstoner.

In Queens news, the Durst
Organization is moving forward with yet another rental project - a
63-story building on Northern Boulevard in Long Island
City.

The developer filed plans on
Friday for a nearly 1-million-square-foot mixed-use project, which
will include 763 rental units across 786,355 square feet and 8,702
square feet of commercial space. According to DOB records, the
project looks to be one of the largest residential projects in
Queens by unit count. Durstpaid $175 millionfor the site last year,The Real Dealreported at the time.

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